Photo by Jon Anderson
Kathy Murphy 6-4-19
Hoover schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy
Hoover schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy is proposing to start the 2021-22 school year on Aug. 10 and once again give students a full week out of school for Thanksgiving.
Murphy shared the calendar proposal at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Hoover school board and is asking the board to vote on it on Dec. 10.
Her recommendation comes after she was not pleased with the top calendar selection from a survey conducted earlier this year.
School leaders gave parents, teachers and students three options for a 2021-22 school calendar, and 44% of 4,260 respondents favored Option C, which would have started school in 2021 on Aug. 18 instead of Aug. 11 and given students only three days out of school during the week of Thanksgiving instead of the entire week.
However, there were not many difference between Options A and B, which meant that 56% of respondents actually favored starting school earlier and getting a full week out for Thanksgiving.
Murphy on Tuesday night said anytime you do a survey, you can’t make everybody happy, but she thinks the calendar she is now proposing takes care of the big things that a majority of people want.
The calendar she is proposing also will allow the first semester to end before Christmas break, give students nine weekdays out of school for Christmas break and end school before Memorial Day.
The main thing it did not accomplish is to allow teachers to get out of school the same day as students at the end of the year, Murphy said. Teachers had requested that, but Murphy said she doesn’t think it’s feasible for teachers to give end-of-the-year tests, grade and record those tests and get out the same day as students, while also maximizing instructional time.
Here are highlights from the calendar she is recommending for 2021-22, which is still 21 months away:
- Aug. 5 — Teacher institute
- Aug. 6 & 9 — Teacher workdays
- Aug. 10 — First day for students
- Sept. 6 — Closed for Labor Day
- Oct. 11 — Students out for teacher workday
- Nov. 11 — Closed for Veterans Day
- Nov. 22-26 — Closed for Thanksgiving
- Dec. 22-Jan. 3 — Winter break
- Jan. 3 — Teacher workday
- Jan. 4 — Students return
- Jan. 17 — Closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- Feb. 21-22 — Teacher professional development days
- March 28-April 1 — Spring break
- April 15 — School closed
- May 24 — Last day for students
Here is the calendar for the current 2019-20 school year and the calendar already approved for 2020-21.
